


It's Black, Like My Soul

by Dante_Morgan



Category: Bleach
Genre: Banter, General idiocy, Humor, Ichigo being Thirsty, M/M, guys being dudes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-16
Updated: 2020-11-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:01:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27583082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dante_Morgan/pseuds/Dante_Morgan
Summary: In which Kurosaki Ichigo moves into his very first flat, is tracked down by an irate Arrancar whom he neglected to give his new address to, and finds out exactly what color underwear the man wears underneath those wide-legged hakama of his.His new neighbors are going to fuckinghatehim.
Relationships: Grimmjow Jaegerjaques/Kurosaki Ichigo
Comments: 39
Kudos: 399





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea where the fuck this came from lmao

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me you were moving to a different town,” Grimmjow complained sourly, narrowing his eyes at Ichigo as a thin stream of blood trickled from the corner of his mouth and slowly travelled upward along his cheek from there. He squeezed one eye fully shut when the blood threatened to irritate it, but made no move to actually free himself from the awkward, upside-down tangle of both tree- and human limbs he’d gotten himself stuck in after Ichigo’s _Getsuga_ had launched him up into a young oak’s canopy. “…You bitch.”

Ichigo sighed. “Why in the hell would I voluntarily tell the stalker who’s been trying to _murder_ me for nearly two years straight my new address?” he asked rhetorically, driving Zangetsu into the ground and leaning on the sword’s pommel with his forearms. Their fight seemed to have reached its conclusion, seeing how Grimmjow had actually turned talkative and vaguely sulky instead of simply carrying on as his usual stabby self.

Grimmjow clicked his tongue. “Just when I was starting to think that maybe you _weren’t_ a massive pussy,” he sneered, doing a remarkable job at acting like he had any moral superiority to speak of when he had no less than three separate oak branches stuffed down his white _Hakama_ and another one through his Hollow Hole for good measure. “What happened to you saying you’d fight me anytime I wanted, huh?!” he demanded. “We finally got a good thing going and then you just cut and run off into the night?!”

“Okay, first off? If you’re gonna get all haughty on me, you should try doing it when you _aren’t_ flossing your crack with oak leaves,” Ichigo advised.

“Fuck you, Kurosaki.”

“Second of all,” he went right on as though Grimmjow hadn’t interrupted, “…I actually was gonna come and find you pretty soon, anyway.”

Ichigo averted his gaze when Grimmjow stilled, awkwardly scratching the back of his neck. “I wasn’t trying to hide from you or anything, I just… wanted some time to get settled in. I’m starting college soon, you know? I’ve got a lot going on. Hell, I hadn’t even finished unpacking yet when you suddenly crashed down on my balcony and scared the living shit out of me.”

Slowly, Grimmjow lowered his hackles. “…Oh,” he muttered, reaching down to wipe the blood out of his eye with a thumb. “Well, if you just wanted a break, then why didn’t you just fucking say so?”

Ichigo shot him the flattest, most unimpressed stare he could manage. “If I had, would you have listened?”

Grimmjow tilted his head to the side as he pressed one nostril closed and blew a chunk of clotted blood out the other. “Probably not,” he admitted without shame, letting both arms drop to hang limply overhead of him.

The corner of Ichigo’s right eye twitched. “You’re a dick,” he stated blandly, then pulled Zangetsu loose again and slung the sword over his back. “Need any help getting down?”

“Well, you fucked me up badly enough that I can’t move my arm or leg, so it ain’t looking like I’m going anywhere on my own anytime soon,” Grimmjow admitted, using his functioning right arm to give his immobile left a little shove. It swung limply back and forth like a pendulum.

“…Should I go and get Orihime?” Ichigo wondered aloud, raising an eyebrow at the state the other man was in.

Grimmjow craned his neck to look at the growing puddle of blood pooling directly underneath him. “…Nah, I’m good.”

Ichigo snorted and approached the trunk of the oak while shaking his head, reaching up to grab hold of both Grimmjow’s wrists. "Suit yourself."

“Wait a sec,” Grimmjow spoke up in alarm when he saw what Ichigo was about to do, “lemme get that branch out of my Hollow Hole first before you— _FUCK!”_

One firm tug later, Grimmjow came tumbling down in one big immobile lump, the overly familiar branch that had gotten stuck through the hole in his abdomen zipping right back out like a string of dental floss while Grimmjow let out several choice expletives.

Some rapid maneuvering allowed Ichigo to break Grimmjow’s fall with one arm around the man’s back and the other supporting his knees, and then they were suddenly just two grown-ass men standing in the middle of the devastation they’d caused during their little playdate-slash-unprompted murder attempt.

Which had taken place in a publicly accessible park two blocks away from Ichigo’s new apartment.

On the very first day that Ichigo actually, officially lived there.

…Even when they couldn’t possibly know that he was the one responsible, his new neighbors were still going to hate him so goddamn much, a despondent Ichigo thought to himself.

Grimmjow shuddered within his arms. “You have no idea how fucking gross it feels to have something zip _through_ you like that,” he complained.

Ichigo felt a little bad when broken branches rained down all around them, further adding to the mess of uprooted trees, gouges within the earth, and smoking craters they’d left behind, but another, louder part of him was oddly gratified to see that Grimmjow had never even doubted Ichigo would catch him, if being molested by a tree was the only thing he felt like complaining about. His former enemy and current homicidal sparring buddy’s faith in him was… nice. Very much so, even.

“Anyway, just… drop me off at Urahara’s or whatever,” Grimmjow trailed off. “I’ll heal up in a couple hours, then I can go back to Hueco Mundo.”

“You want to be left alone with _Urahara_ while you can barely move?” Ichigo asked with eyebrows raised. “You trust him that much?”

Grimmjow looked off to the side, baring his teeth. “I trust him not to fucking kill me, at least,” he grumbled out. “Though he’ll probably find a way to make himself into a huge pain in my ass while I can’t shut him up by shoving a fist down his throat. But clearly you don’t want to be bothered right now, so…”

Ichigo smiled wryly, a trickle of guilt starting to churn within his stomach at the miserable sight of the man. “Then… why don’t you come stay over at my new place for a bit?” he blurted out before he could think better of it. “Just long enough for your wounds to heal up.”

Oddly dejected as he’d been starting to look, Grimmjow perked right back up at that, sitting up a bit straighter within Ichigo’s hold as he met his gaze again. “You’d take me to your new place? Like, voluntarily? After all that crap you just said?”

“You already know where it is, anyway,” Ichigo replied with a casual shrug. “And like I said, I never actually meant to keep you away.” He turned around with Grimmjow in his arms, preparing to leap up into the air when Grimmjow insistently grabbed onto his shoulder.

“Okay, fine, but I don’t need you to carry me over the threshold like some blushing bride, Kurosaki,” the man complained, already beginning to wiggle around as he tried repositioning himself with only half his limbs in working order.

“That is not a mental image I needed in my head, thanks,” Ichigo deadpanned, compliantly allowing Grimmjow to clamber all over him until the man was finally settled in place on his back. Hoisting him up and firmly grabbing onto his thighs, Ichigo kicked off against the ground; a few lazy, aerial flash steps soon depositing the both of them upon his brand-new apartment’s cramped little balcony.

His physical body was still where he’d left it when Grimmjow had suddenly dropped out of the sky to assault him, its forehead and nose smushed against the concrete floor and its ass sticking up into the air. Ichigo dearly hoped no one had spotted it yet and called an ambulance, thinking he’d dropped dead in the middle of hanging up his laundry.

“How the hell did you find me here, anyway?” Ichigo asked as he opened his glass sliding door and stepped into the warmth of his tiny new flat; mindful not to bang Grimmjow’s head into anything. “Did Urahara give you my new address?”

Grimmjow snorted. “As if I fucking needed it—you’re dogshit at suppressing your Reiatsu. It’s a goddamn embarrassment, really. You thought I wouldn’t be able to track that shit from a measly two towns away from Karakura?”

Doing his best to hide an embarrassed wince, Ichigo glanced around the room to try and find a spot where he could put Grimmjow down—preferably one that wouldn’t be a bitch to clean the inevitable stains out of, what with the Arrancar doing his best impression of a leaky bloodmobile. “You know what, fuck this,” he muttered aloud, sweeping past his living room and kicking open his bathroom door. “I’m patching you up a bit before you go and bleed all over my new couch."

“Don’t bother,” Grimmjow protested, “I might not be able to rip my own eye out and grow a new one like that freak Ulquiorra—”

“He did that? _Gross.”_

“Right? But I still heal a whole lot faster than some weak-ass human would. I don’t need any TLC coming from _you_ , Kurosaki.”

“Yeah sure, _you’ll_ heal, but my couch fucking won't,” Ichigo shot back, lowering himself enough to sit Grimmjow down on the closed toilet lid. “Just lemme go grab some gauze; I should have a bunch of first aid stuff in one of those boxes in the living room.”

“I told you not to fucking bother!” Grimmjow insisted. _“Look!”_ he ordered, opening up his jacket so that Ichigo could see how the deep, crisscrossing slashes he’d left on his abdomen with Zangetsu had already clotted over and even shrunken quite a bit during their short trip there.

“…Alright, suit yourself,” Ichigo gave in when he saw the evidence for himself. “But you should still get yourself cleaned up at least; your face is caked with blood and mud, and at this point your clothes are literally just tatters. If you think you can make it into the shower on your own, I’ll go and find you something you can wear in the meantime.”

“My clothes are fine,” Grimmjow sneered, yanking his jacket over one shoulder as he attempted to wriggle out of the garment, when the whole thing promptly tore all the way in two with a loud, echoing rip. Grimmjow sucked his teeth as the ruined fabric fell to the floor. “…Shut up and give me a hand,” he grumbled out, and Ichigo—not at all hiding the amused smirk he was now sporting—walked over to do just that.

“You know this sort of thing would go a whole lot easier if you’d just learn to ask for help in the first place?” Ichigo asked once he was kneeling on the floor tiles in front of Grimmjow. He hiked up the white fabric of the man’s _Hakama_ , then began pulling his left boot off.

“Look who’s fucking talking,” Grimmjow groused, narrowing his eyes at Ichigo as he yanked off his sock too before moving over to the other foot. “You’d run dick-first into danger for any one of your weakling friends, but when it’s your own life that’s on the line? You’d sooner die than ask any of them to risk theirs.”

Ichigo furrowed his brow, yanking off the second boot with more force than was strictly necessary. “It’s a character flaw, alright?” he grumbled out, feeling a sting of guilt when Grimmjow hissed in response to the rough treatment. He muttered an apology and double-checked that the gash on the man’s calf hadn’t opened back up.

“When you get done fondling my leg,” Grimmjow drawled, lazily leaning back against the water tank, “help me up so I can get my pants off already.”

“And I didn’t even have to buy you dinner first,” Ichigo quipped as he let Grimmjow wrap his functioning arm around his shoulders, then stood upright to drag him back up along with him. Once they were both standing erect however, the problem with their current situation soon dawned on Ichigo.

“Wait. You only have one working arm… which you’re already using to hold yourself up,” he reasoned aloud, watching as Grimmjow raised an amused eyebrow at him while he put the puzzle pieces together. “…You meant for _me_ to take your pants off, didn’t you?”

The grin on the other man’s face was like shards of glass and razor wire. “Scared you’ll find something you like in there?” he asked, his gruff voice coming out almost sickly-sweet.

_Yes._

“Hell no!” Ichigo denied hotly. “Just… just—! Ah, screw it,” he decided, and hooked his thumbs underneath the waistband of Grimmjow’s pants before shimmying them down his legs. “We don’t ever speak of this.”

Grimmjow let out a low, throaty chuckle, but nevertheless eased off on the teasing. Probably not for long, but hey, Ichigo would take what he could get.

“…Isn’t it weird that we’re doing shit like this now, when we were pretty much trying to kill each other not ten minutes ago?” Ichigo asked when he felt Grimmjow relax against him, the man standing near enough for him to pick up on every rise of his chest as Grimmjow breathed in, followed by hot air wafting over the exposed skin on his neck with every breath out.

“We touch each other plenty while we’re fighting,” Grimmjow reasoned aloud, wriggling his hips to make the whole process a little easier on Ichigo. His pants pooled onto the floor around his ankles in a red, white and mud-covered heap. Quick reflexes allowed Ichigo to save Pantera from clattering onto the floor tiles, and he propped the blade up against the nearest wall, instead.

“Guess that’s why I don’t mind when it’s you doing this.” Grimmjow went on, giving a one-shouldered shrug before adding, “Everyone else who’s ever gotten close enough to touch me like this is dead, Kurosaki. Everybody but you.”

Ichigo was stunned into silence by that casual admission, his hands awkwardly continuing to hover over Grimmjow’s hips. “That’s… kinda sad, honestly,” he finally muttered in response.

Grimmjow frowned, his nostrils flaring dangerously. “Well I ain’t looking for your pity, Kurosaki,” he spat.

“Good, ‘cuz you aren’t getting any,” Ichigo bluntly shot back. “Besides, it’s not like I’m doing all that much better. Come to think of it, this might just be the closest I’ve actually come to getting any in… well, ever.”

Grimmjow’s features evened out again as he snorted loudly, the sound sending vibrations travelling all throughout Ichigo’s chest. “Yeah, well you’re about to get a little closer still, in a second—I ain’t showering in my freaking skivvies, Kurosaki.”

Ichigo failed entirely to suppress a groan. “Okay, seriously? We are _so far_ past casual sparring buddies now.” He looked down to see what he would be working with, and raised his eyebrows in mild surprise. “Huh. I always kinda took you for the freeballing type,” he commented upon seeing the man’s nether regions clad in simple—if disturbingly form-fitting—black boxers.

“I mean it though,” Ichigo insisted, “casual acquaintances don’t do this kind of shit for each other. Are we, like… are we actually… _friends?”_ he hedged, pronouncing the word as though he were feeling out the shape of it on his tongue.

Grimmjow didn’t recoil immediately as Ichigo had feared he would, but the other man did arch one eyebrow to a frankly impressive height as he met Ichigo’s gaze. “I don’t have any fucking _friends_ , Kurosaki.”

“Oh, so you just have random strangers carry you into their bathrooms and ask them to take your clothes off?” Ichigo riposted, and saw a muscle underneath Grimmjow’s right eye jump.

“Shut up and get me naked, Kurosaki,” Grimmjow growled out, and Ichigo sighed loudly.

“Okay, fine, whatever. But I’m getting you a towel to wrap around your waist first,” he stated firmly. “Here, lean against the wall for a second.”

“What, are you kidding?” Grimmjow asked, incredulous, when Ichigo left him to try and keep himself upright on just one wobbly leg. “For the three feet we have to cross to get me into your crappy little shower?”

“Three feet in which there’s a very high risk of you rubbing your bare dick all over me while we’re shuffling around, and if that happens on top of everything else, I might actually have a mental breakdown,” Ichigo retorted crossly. He stepped out into the living room real quick while Grimmjow was occupied with rolling his eyes at him, fished a towel out of the nearest open moving box, and marched right back in.

“Are you _that_ worried about feeling inadequate, Kurosaki?” Grimmjow teased him as he managed to catch the rolled-up towel Ichigo had aimed at his head, and some part of Ichigo—his masculine pride, most likely—decided that it had put up with quite enough of the other man’s crap for one day.

“Okay, you know what? I’ll show you _inadequate,”_ Ichigo grunted out, and before his common sense could come rushing in to intervene, yanked his own black _Hakama_ down and deeply enjoyed the sight of Grimmjow's eyes pretty much bugging right out of his skull.

“How do you like _them_ apples?” Ichigo asked, jutting his hips sideways in a way that left his manhood casually swaying back and forth for a second or two. Grimmjow’s eyes actually moved from left to right and back again as they involuntarily tracked the motion.

“Well?” Ichigo demanded when the silence stretched on, and what felt like a solid liter of blood began flooding into his face as Common Sense finally made its much-belated arrival to the party and brought Crippling Embarrassment along as its plus one.

Grimmjow continued to stare at his crotch appraisingly for another couple of seconds, very much unhurried. “Huh,” he finally uttered. “Gotta admit, I’m kind of impressed; I was sure you were just swinging that giant sword around to overcompensate for something.” He twisted his lips into a shape that indicated grudging acknowledgement.

“It’s not bad,” he allowed, in an irritatingly blasé manner. “I've seen worse. You can put it away now.” A furiously beet-faced Ichigo quickly tucked himself into his pants again before he approached Grimmjow.

The pair of them reassumed their earlier positioning with Grimmjow clamping onto Ichigo for balance, while Ichigo himself hooked his thumbs underneath the elastic of Grimmjow’s boxers and began to blindly tug them off.

“Just remember my eyes are up here, Kurosaki,” Grimmjow said, grinning right in his face, and Ichigo responded by yanking his undies the rest of the way off in one swift, friction-burn inducing motion, which made Grimmjow flinch but did nothing to remedy that infuriating smirk.

Still smoldering internally, Ichigo wrapped the towel around Grimmjow’s waist without taking so much as a peek at the goods, and then proceeded to force-march the man over into his shower stall, yanking the curtain shut behind him as soon as he was safely inside.

“Try not to slip and crack your skull open while I’m gone,” Ichigo vocalized with as much dignity as he could muster. “I’m gonna try and find you something that’ll fit you. Just yell when you’re ready to get out again.”

Not giving Grimmjow any chance to reply, Ichigo exited the bathroom and, with remarkable composure, went rummaging through the nearest box of clothes to pull out the largest-size shirt he had, a comfortably warm hoodie, and a pair of sweatpants. Grimmjow might have still been a bit taller than Ichigo, but he was a fully-grown eighteen-year-old man now rather than a teenager going through the tail end of puberty, and the difference between them had shrunk to practically nothing. These clothes would work fine, he reasoned.

Satisfied with his haul, Ichigo deposited the small bundle of clothing on the back of his couch before stepping out onto the balcony and pulling his now worryingly-blue tinged body into the living room by its armpits. Three minutes later, he had it safely tucked into bed where it would hopefully recover from its mild bout of hypothermia without any lasting ill effects, and only then did he finally allow himself sink down onto his brand-new couch for the very first time.

He spent the remainder of Grimmjow’s time showering sitting right there, holding his head in his hands and doing his absolute best to resist the urge to scream when he finally went and had his much-deserved mental breakdown.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I could have just posted this next part in its entirety, but for the sake of keeping the chapter lengths more or less even (and sparing myself from having to edit 7K words at once) I decided to split it up after all. The actual final part won't be more than a couple days behind this one, don't worry ^^

Ichigo still hadn’t moved an inch by the time his bathroom door creaked open again and a cloud of steam came billowing out, followed by a badly limping Grimmjow.

“Oi!” Ichigo called out, immediately snapping out of his stupor upon seeing Grimmjow trying to hobble his way over unassisted. “I told you to yell when you were done!” he chastised the man, rushing over to lend him his shoulder for the rest of the distance. His skin was still damp and flushed from the heat of the shower, Ichigo noted. Grimmjow’s body heat seeped right through the layers of his Shinigami uniform.

“Quit your worrying already,” Grimmjow complained, “I’ve healed up enough to walk ten measly feet on my own, at least. These for me?” he changed topics upon noticing the bundle of clothes Ichigo had picked out.

“Yeah,” Ichigo confirmed. “You need any help putting them on?”

Grimmjow responded to his question by rifling through the three articles of clothing, turning his nose up at all of them, and carelessly tossing the bunch right back where he’d found it. Ichigo blinked as Grimmjow then shuffled back over to the box that held the rest of his clothes and began digging through it like a dog in search of a bone, half of Ichigo’s wardrobe ending up on the floor before the man finally found something he deemed fit to wear.

“Well, you picked out just about the nicest dress shirt I own,” Ichigo deadpanned as he helped Grimmjow slip his dead arm through its sleeve. “You’ve got expensive taste, asshole.” He frowned as he took in the full picture; critically observing the way Grimmjow looked with his still-damp hair all tussled and half hanging in front of his eyes, his cheeks and chest slightly rosy, and his abs on prominent display with the black shirt left unbuttoned.

 _Well fuck,_ Ichigo thought.

He swallowed the sudden lump that materialized in his throat with as much subtlety as he could muster. “You ah… you look pretty good in it though,” he commented. He was so preoccupied with staring that he didn’t even realize when the man starting moving again, almost tripping over his own feet when Grimmjow dragged him along.

“W-wait!” Ichigo stammered out, “You’re not gonna put on any pants?!”

“Why the fuck would I?” Grimmjow demanded. “It’s just us here, and you literally just pulled your entire cock out to wave it at me; you don’t get tell me that it offends your delicate sensibilities to have to see the outline of my junk.”

Ichigo sucked his teeth as he prayed for the strength to overcome this ordeal. “It was an impulse decision,” he grumbled morosely. “You goaded me into it.”

Grimmjow snorted. “Sure didn’t expect you to go and do _that_ though,” he said with an amused smirk and a dangerous gleam in his eyes. He unwrapped his arm from around Ichigo’s neck once he was in front of the couch, and let himself fall backwards into its cushions. “You’re more of a freak than I ever gave you credit for.”

 _“Please_ shut up,” Ichigo moaned, shuffling over to the other end of the couch and taking Zangetsu off his back before following Grimmjow’s example when he collapsed into it in a boneless heap.

Grimmjow snickered as he leaned back and threw his functioning arm over the back rest. “So,” he started to say while scanning the interior of the pitifully small apartment. “Livin’ the college life, huh?” His features scrunched up in distaste. “I don’t get why the fuck you’re even bothering with this shit. You’re pretty much the strongest goddamn thing on the planet right now; go and conquer yourself a chunk of Hueco Mundo and rule it like a king already. Would be a damn sight better than living in a glorified cardboard box.”

Barking out a laugh, Ichigo shook his head in bemusement. “Yeah, no thanks. I’m gonna try and enjoy my human life while I can. I’m pretty done with the whole ‘afterlife’ side of things for a while.” He glanced over at Grimmjow. “…Present company excluded.”

“Oh, I’m so goddamn flattered,” Grimmjow deadpanned, making Ichigo smile. That smile grew strained however, when Grimmjow started repositioning himself so that he was facing Ichigo, swinging his functioning leg up onto the couch and leaning back against the large pillow he’d placed by the armrest.

Suddenly one of Grimmjow’s bare feet was almost in Ichigo’s lap; a muscular, long leg taking up the entirety of the space that had been separating the two of them. Grimmjow’s raised knee framed the left side of his face, and Ichigo found it quite the monumental task to not follow the outlines of those muscles in his upper leg all the way down to where black fabric was wrapped snugly around his thigh.

…Among other things.

Had he set accidentally set the thermostat too high? Ichigo nervously opened up the collar of his uniform a little to try and cool himself. “Y- you’ve actually got pretty small feet for a guy your size,” he blurted out in quasi-desperation, eyes landing on the one part of Grimmjow that seemed more or less safe to focus on right now. “Never noticed that before. Guess it makes sense though, what with you turning into a giant cat when you release your sword.”

A vein on Grimmjow’s temple throbbed. “I’m graceful as shit all over, Kurosaki; can’t help being built that way,” he sneered. “Besides, they’re barely below average. See?” He lifted his leg and tried to grind the sole of his foot against Ichigo’s face as if to demonstrate the truth of that statement. “Or what, are you tryin’ to imply something else there, huh? _Huh?!”_

Ichigo wrapped one hand around his ankle to keep the man’s wriggling toes at bay. “When did I say anything like that?!” Ichigo questioned, briefly forgetting that looking in Grimmjow’s general direction was a danger to his mental well-being right now, and quickly being reminded of that fact when he saw how Grimmjow’s thighs were spread apart even wider now. Certain bits were having their contours revealed in very obvious ways as the black fabric of his boxers stretched out every time Grimmjow moved his leg.

“A-aren’t you being a little defensive?” Ichigo shot back, just barely failing to keep the stammer out of his voice when his throat momentarily threatened to close up. He forced his gaze back up to lock eyes with Grimmjow instead of with his crotch. “Seems kinda suspicious, after the way you were talking big back there in the bathroom.”

Grimmjow’s lips pulled back to reveal his teeth.

 _Crap,_ Ichigo thought. He usually only brought out the murder face while they were in the middle of a really good fight.

“You want me to whip it out right now?” Grimmjow demanded, his demented expression only growing more so as he spoke. “’Cuz I fucking will, Kurosaki, and then you can take a _long, hard_ look at it ‘till you’re nice and satisfied.”

“N-no I’m good!” Ichigo all but squeaked out, inadvertently startling Grimmjow with the sheer panic that hasty response had contained, even to his own ears. “I’ll take your word for it!”

Grimmjow narrowed his eyes in suspicion, but eventually sank back into his cushion nevertheless. He stretched his leg all the way out before dropping his foot back down, and this time it did end up in Ichigo’s lap. “Got anything else you wanna comment on, Kurosaki?”

Ichigo tried to be as subtle as he possibly could while letting out the relieved breath he’d been holding in. “Well… I’ve never seen you with your hair down before, for one thing,” he remarked, once he deemed it safe enough to try and re-establish eye contact. “You look… younger, somehow. If it was wasn’t for that resting bitch face you’ve got going on, I’d say early twenties.”

Grimmjow kicked him in the thigh. Ichigo retaliated by grabbing his pinky toe and twisting it until the man shot forward to claw at his hand, which only served to make Ichigo laugh when he failed to reach. Grimmjow sulkily retreated to his side of the couch, still proving no match for him with just one working arm.

“How old were you, anyway, when you… when you died?” Ichigo asked cautiously once they’d both settled down again. “Were you really still that young, or do you just happen to look that way now?”

Grimmjow’s expression clouded over, and Ichigo immediately worried he’d overstepped.

It was one of those rare times where Grimmjow didn’t have a response ready to jump off his tongue before Ichigo himself had even finished speaking, and Ichigo half-expected to just be told to mind his own damn business.

“I… don’t really remember,” Grimmjow finally admitted, in a much softer tone than Ichigo was used to hearing from him. “You already tend to lose most of your memories—except for whatever obsession or regret that made you become a Hollow in the first place—when you first turn into one. Once you start moving up the pecking order though…” he trailed off.

“You… you get all mixed up with a couple thousand other souls on your way to Gillian and then Adjuchas, so what little that might have managed to stick with you up to that point gets scrambled to hell.” With a distant look in his eyes, Grimmjow brought his hand up to run it along the lower ridge of his jawbone Mask Fragment. “Getting turned into an Arrancar actually brought some stuff back again, but it’s only like… vague echoes of a life I lead before. Doesn’t even feel like that was _me_ , really.”

Suddenly, Grimmjow snapped back out of whatever strange mood had gotten hold of him, and he pulled his hand away from his Mask Fragment as though it had burned him. He shook his head. “Anyway, I’m pretty sure I never lived long enough to have my nutsack drop down to my knees, at least. Think I just got myself mixed in with the wrong crowd and never made it home after one especially bad night.” He huffed out a breath and raised the corner of his mouth in a wistful half-smile. “Guess I didn’t learn my lesson the first time around, huh?”

Ichigo had listened to the tale as if entranced. “Grimmjow…” he began to say, only for the other man to cut him off.

“Spare me,” he huffed out bitterly, leaning on one elbow and propping his head up on his fist. “Like I said, Kurosaki, I ain’t looking for your pity.”

_Then what are you looking for?_

Much as Ichigo wanted to ask that question, the words simply refused to pass through his lips.

Grimmjow continued to look at him with those strangely unguarded eyes. “Anyway, I’m pretty confident I never got around to doing the whole college thing when I was alive. Or a whole lot of school, for that matter. Just what the hell do you plan to be doing here for the next couple years, other than jerking off?”

“…I’m studying Literature,” Ichigo admitted. He gave a one-shouldered shrug when Grimmjow stared at him in disbelief. “I’ve helped save the world twice over by now; I’ve had my fill of excitement. I figure this is gonna be nice and boring—just spend the next few years reading all about Shakespeare and shit.”

Feeling a surge of boldness, he added, “Besides, right now you’re about all the excitement I could want in my life, really.”

Grimmjow reeled back, a faint smudge of red dusting the very tips of his ears. “I cannot _believe_ you just said that shit to me with a straight face. Fucking _gross,_ Kurosaki _.”_

“Right?” They held each other’s gazes for a bit, then looked away in perfect synchronicity as they each tried to stifle their laughter.

Ichigo felt strangely exhilarated in the wake of that admission. His heart was beating a mile a minute inside his chest.

His gaze fell upon Grimmjow’s leg, still stretched out over the entire length of the couch, and he reached out to touch it without thinking. “Hey, you have these tiny little scars all over your leg,” he remarked as he gently brushed his fingers over one of the faint, pinkish lines there. “You can barely even see them, but damn, there’s so _many!”_ He tried to count them all, but there were more that Ichigo couldn’t fully see hiding on the back of his leg. “What the hell did you even do to get all these?”

Grimmjow clicked his tongue, his face scrunching up into an irritated sneer. “Who do you _think_ gave me those?” he grumbled. “Being number six out of ten pissed me off badly enough all on its own, but getting ranked immediately behind the two biggest cockholes out of the whole bunch? I spent practically every free moment I had gunning for that gangly jackass Nnoitra’s spot.”

He held out his right arm to Ichigo, showing that it carried same sort of faint scarring. “Never beat him, obviously, but I’d like to think I left him a couple marks of my own, at least.”

“You got all of those from him?” Ichigo questioned, flipping Grimmjow’s arm over so he could check the underside, as well.

“Most of ‘em, yeah. Tousen, the prick, got me a good few times too, for what he called ‘acts of disobedience’ and shit. Blind fuck never could stand me.” He watched through hooded eyes as Ichigo continued to brush his fingers over the many scars covering his arm. “Ulquiorra though, gloomy bootlicking piece of bat crap that he was, always did his best not to leave any visible marks.”

Grimmjow pulled his arm back and brushed his fingers over the skin below his throat. “Asshole thought of all of us as Aizen’s property. Didn’t want to damage his master’s precious chess pieces for that bullshit war he was planning _,”_ he spat. “He always made sure to leave me with a warning of his own, though, after every fight we had.”

At first, Ichigo didn’t get what he meant, but then the memory of his own temporary demise at Ulquiorra’s hands flashed before his eyes, and he crawled over to the other side of the couch on his hands and knees until he was leaning right into Grimmjow’s personal space.

“Is that… from his fingernail?” Ichigo asked, gazing intently at a spot right between Grimmjow’s clavicles, just an inch above the long, darkened strip of skin that Ichigo himself had put there. There was a barely-visible pucker of scar tissue there, shaped like a tiny starburst. Hesitantly, Ichigo brough his hand closer to touch it, but froze halfway, suddenly realizing that he was likely pushing his luck at this point.

“Yeah,” Grimmjow breathed out, blinking rapidly at Ichigo’s sudden proximity. Belatedly, Ichigo realized that he was now sitting right in between Grimmjow’s legs, his knees pressing into the couch cushion barely an inch removed from the man’s groin. All it would take would be for Grimmjow to slide an inch or two further down and he’d be rubbing his nuts right up against Ichigo’s thigh.

 _Yup, this is it,_ Ichigo realized. _This is where I either die of embarrassment, or from having Grimmjow kill me._

The latter option seemed almost preferable.

Distracted as he was by his internal meltdown, Ichigo startled when Grimmjow’s fingers suddenly closed around his own wrist.

 _Oh good—option 2 it is,_ he thought blankly. Grimmjow, however, had other ideas.

The man shocked him by pulling Ichigo’s hand the rest of the way over to his own chest, instead of flinging him off the couch or outright maiming him as had been expected. “Every time, he’d pierce my Hierro with his nail, right there,” Grimmjow murmured, pressing Ichigo’s fingers up against the scar. “Just a half-inch deep, to let me know that he could kill me if he really wanted. That I was _trash_ he could crush underneath his boot whenever he felt like it.”

“You’re not trash,” Ichigo denied hotly, acutely aware of the pounding of his heartbeat in just about the same spot where he was now touching Grimmjow. “A cocky piece of shit with an ego the size of a planet, sure, but taking you down a couple pegs every now and then is half the fun of hanging out with you.”

Ichigo yelped when Grimmjow’s hand whipped out, quick as a cat, and cupped the back of his head before yanking it downward. When he followed it up by giving Ichigo an improvised noogie with his freaking forehead, Ichigo couldn’t help the startled laughter that went and forced its way out of his throat.

“You little punk,” Grimmjow’s gruff voice sounded from closer-by than Ichigo had ever heard it. “You go and save the afterlife a couple times and think you’re hot shit, huh?”

“Ow ow ow _—stop that!”_ Ichigo managed to get out in between uncontrolled guffaws, “you—you giant fucking weirdo!”

Grimmjow did not stop—not until he was good and done and Ichigo felt like he’d lost at least a solid twenty percent of head hair.

When Grimmjow at last saw fit to release him from his clutches, Ichigo was left a panting, deliriously chuckling mess, and had to hold on to the man’s shoulders for a minute while he pulled himself together again. Grimmjow watched him with narrowed eyes and half-bared teeth, but Ichigo could see amusement glimmering within his eyes.

“Where the hell did _that_ come from?” Ichigo finally asked, sounding as out of breath as he felt. “That was about the last thing I expected you to do.”

“It was an impulse decision. You goaded me into it,” Grimmjow snarked at him, and Ichigo rolled his eyes. “Besides, that wasn’t even close to the weirdest thing that happened here tonight.”

“Oh my god, would you let it go already?” Ichigo groaned out, trying and failing at refusing to blush.

“It’s pretty hard to unsee that kind of image, Kurosaki,” Grimmjow shot back, shit-eating smirk waxing to its full size again.

Giving up on trying to keep the redness off his face, Ichigo went straight ahead to the ‘denial’-phase where he pretended that it quite simply wasn’t there in spite of all evidence to the contrary.

“Why’s that?” he asked, fueled by a confidence that he was desperately trying to convince himself he actually possessed. “Were you that impressed by what you saw?”

“By your pubes, sure,” Grimmjow shot back, grin steadily edging into ‘demented’ territory. “I mean there’s _firebush_ and then there’s that fucking _bikini sunrise-_ situation you’ve got going on.”

Ichigo honestly wasn’t even aware of his going into a berserk, homicidal rage.

All he knew was that when he came to his senses again, Grimmjow was hanging halfway over the armrest of the couch and was on the cusp of losing his battle with gravity, his shirt ( _Ichigo’s_ shirt) had slipped off his shoulders and was now rumpled up somewhere around his elbows, and Ichigo’s knee was planted squarely in between Grimmjow’s thighs.

His bits looked perilously smushed up within their black cotton confines where they now pressed insistently against the plane of Ichigo’s quads.

Ichigo’s own felt like they were trying to flee back inside his abdomen.

 _I’m gonna be dying a virgin,_ Ichigo realized. Right there on his brand-new couch, too. Which he’d probably end up getting blood all over anyway when Grimmjow ripped his still-beating heart out through his nostril.

God _dammit._


	3. Chapter 3

Right around the time Ichigo reached the apex of his little panic attack, Grimmjow’s center of gravity finally shifted past the tipping point, and Ichigo pulled himself together just enough to reach out and grab his wrist before the man could crack his skull open on his tile floor. Ichigo ignored the way Grimmjow was trying his damnedest to bite down on his other hand—the one Ichigo had clamped over his face during their little kerfuffle—and Ichigo managed to pull it back just in time for Grimmjow’s painfully pointy pearly whites to snap shut on thin air instead of around several of his fingers. They both teetered precariously for a second, and then Ichigo managed to shift his weight just right and yanked Grimmjow back onto the safety of the couch with him.

“…You okay?” he asked hesitantly, giving himself approximately 9-to-1 odds of getting mauled to death within the next five seconds.

“Sure,” Grimmjow croaked out, face oddly scrunched up. “You just crushed my nuts against your thigh when you pulled me back up, but other than that I’m fucking peachy, Kurosaki.”

All the blood drained from Ichigo’s face when he looked down to see his leg planted directly in between both of Grimmjow’s own, with the very same bits he’d been trying desperately not to think about all night now pretty much pancaked against his leg.

_Fuck._

_Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck—_

With a groan, Grimmjow backed up a bit and settled against the armrest again, shamelessly sticking his hand down his boxers to readjust himself while Ichigo sat there frozen. “I keep forgetting what a goddamn lunatic you are,” he muttered out, sounding vaguely approving in spite of his gruff tone. The elastic of his underwear snapped loudly against his abdomen when he retracted his hand, presumably satisfied that there hadn’t been any lasting damage done. “You’re stronger than you look, Kurosaki. Especially when that temper of yours kicks in.”

“…S- sorry,” Ichigo stuttered out, still unable to bring himself to move. “You sure everything’s, uh… alright, down there?”

_Smooth one, dumbass._

Grimmjow’s lips stretched dangerously wide. “You can go ahead and check for yourself if you’re that worried,” he offered, his tone as close to innocent as Ichigo had ever heard it.

“I’ve already seen more than enough of you for one day, thanks.” Ichigo flatly shot back, like a filthy liar. “I’ll pass on the testicular exam.” With mischief shining in his eyes, he added, “I could always hook you up at the clinic though, if you really want one. My dad’s surprisingly gentle according to old man Nakamura from next door.”

Grimmjow looked at him as if he’d just been made to swallow a lemon. “Stop talking right the fuck now, Kurosaki,” he ordered, an expression of horrified disgust taking over his features. “That shit’s gonna give me nightmares.”

Ichigo chuckled, finally letting himself relax again. Grimmjow still hadn’t bothered to put his shirt back on properly, and Ichigo took advantage by letting his eyes roam over the gnarly, crescent-shaped scar that curved around the side of his neck.

“I don’t have to give you any backstory on that one, do I?” Grimmjow murmured, fingering the scar in distaste as he caught Ichigo looking. “You were there when I got it.”

“Yeah, and if I hadn’t already been on my last legs back then, I’d have paid that lanky piece of shit back twofold for what he did to you,” Ichigo stated darkly, his change in tone making Grimmjow’s eyes widen. “He got off easy going up against Kenpachi.”

He saw his own reflection within Grimmjow’s eyes, and for an instant, his irises became tinged with yellow. “If there was ever a person who deserved squaring off with my inner Hollow, it would have been him, not Ulquiorra.”

“Speaking of which, fuck whatever bullshit he said to you,” Ichigo bulldozed right on, leaning in closer to Grimmjow’s personal space again. “I was the one who took him down in the end, and let me tell you; while he might not have been outright evil, the dude had an entire freaking _laundry list_ worth of issues. I mean, the guy went around looking like a manic-depressive mime; I don’t think his opinion is one you need to be worried about. I might feel bad about the way I did it, but I’m sure as hell not sorry he’s gone.”

Grimmjow’s breath involuntarily hitched when Ichigo pressed his palm flat to his chest again, slowly trailing it over the strip of scar tissue that ran all the way down the middle of his chest and abdomen. “I’m not sorry about this, either,” Ichigo stated firmly, even if his voice lost some of its earlier, steely edge. “You deserved it.”

He traced the outer rim of the man’s Hollow Hole, noting the way his abdominals tensed as he did, and stopped his finger right at the tail end of the long scar. A thin strip of blue hair poked out from under the waistband Grimmjow’s boxers barely an inch below it.

“…But it’s not like I hold a grudge. Not anymore.” He looked up to meet Grimmjow’s eyes, finding the other man observing him almost warily. His lips were parted, and his breaths were intentionally being kept shallow and inconspicuous.

He was acting like a wounded jaguar trying not to draw the ire of a fellow predator.

When they locked eyes however, whatever Grimmjow saw in there seemed to put him at ease. “Don’t let this get to your head or anything,” he started to stay, his stomach rising beneath Ichigo’s hand when he finally dared to breathe in deep again, “…but you’re kind of hot when you get angry.”

Ichigo laughed, once again feeling heat rush to his cheeks but not even caring this time. “Thanks. I’m serious though; if you want to be rid of those scars, I’ll just ask Orihime. She’d be happy to help.”

“To hell with that, Kurosaki,” Grimmjow shot down his offer straight away. “That scar’s a reminder of the best goddamn fight I ever had in my life. I’m fucking keeping it ‘till I croak for good.”

 _Jesus fuck._ Why was that turning him on? What the hell was wrong with him?

“What about you?” Grimmjow went on, heedless of Ichigo’s inner turmoil. “Bet you’d look like a fucking kid’s coloring book yourself if the woman hadn’t been there to magic away all your cuts and bruises every time you got your ass kicked.”

Ichigo huffed out a breath. “You got that right,” he admitted. He reared back a bit and opened up the front of his Shinigami robes, baring his chest. “Right from the very first time I ever dealt with Soul Society directly, Byakuya went and stabbed me right here in my Soul Sleep,” Ichigo recalled, touching a spot over his sternum.

He forced himself to sit still and not pull away when Grimmjow lifted his working arm and brought it closer to him, no matter how heavily his heart was pounding.

“How the hell are you still even a Shinigami, then?” Grimmjow wondered, his eyes glued to Ichigo’s chest. “Thought that spot was where all you assholes drew your Spirit Energy from?”

“It… it was kinda complicated,” Ichigo stammered out, heartbeat picking up even more when Grimmjow’s fingers made contact with his skin. They felt a lot warmer than he’d expected them to be. “The power I lost back then was only what I’d borrowed from Rukia—I still had my own, even if I didn’t know it at the time.”

Was Grimmjow feeling just how fast his heart was pounding right now? There was no way in hell he could miss it, right?

“…What else you got?” the man asked, ever so slowly letting his fingers glide downward from his sternum.

Ichigo did his best to suppress a shudder. With a mental command, he had the white X-shaped piece of armor that covered his abdomen dissolve into whisps of black-and-red Spirit Energy. He then pulled his _Shihakusho_ all the way open, letting the heavy fabric slide down his arms to drop onto the couch behind him.

“That shit just comes right off, does it?” Grimmjow questioned with a raised eyebrow when he saw the armor vanish.

“It’s kinda like my Hollow Mask,” Ichigo explained. “I can make it disappear if I want.”

Grimmjow smirked salaciously. “Could come in pretty handy.”

Ichigo was pretty sure his face would be exploding any second now.

Gulping down his nervousness, Ichigo used his finger to draw an imaginary line in between two of the abdominal muscles on the left side of his stomach; one that ran from just an inch to the left of his spine all the way to his side. “The time Kenpachi got me might actually be the worst one,” he spoke, hoping that the tremble in his voice wasn’t as obvious as it sounded. “Stabbed me right there, then tore his sword out through my side. I’m kinda glad I passed out from the blood loss before the pain could fully hit me.”

“Ooh shit, that’s a nasty one.” Grimmjow breathed out, eyes bright with interest as he reached out to touch the spot Ichigo indicated, only to fall short by just an inch or two. “How’d it feel, having a blade shear straight through your guts like that?”

“Oh, it was surprisingly delightful, really— _how the fuck do you think it felt?!”_ Ichigo abruptly raised his voice, making Grimmjow throw his head back and cackle. “That shit fucking hurt!”

Grimmjow’s laughter soon tapered off into chuckles, and he focused on Ichigo again; a few strands of limp blue hair coming to hang in front of his eyes, which glimmered with amusement.

Ichigo huffed, his lips almost unwillingly curling up into a grin. “And then… then I guess there was you,” Ichigo muttered softly, bringing hand just an inch or so higher from the spot where Kenpachi had carved him open. “Shoved your claws right into my abdomen, you shit.”

Once again, Grimmjow reached out—if more hesitantly than before—and this time Ichigo shuffled closer so that he’d be able to reach, swinging his leg over Grimmjow’s own.

His skin erupted in tingles all over when Grimmjow’s broad hand settled into place on his waist, his thumb rubbing soothing circles over the very same spot he’d injured so many months ago.

Ichigo let out a shuddering breath. All he had to do was lower himself a little more and he’d be sitting in his lap, he realized. They’d already crossed a bunch of lines today; lines he’d never imagined the two of them ever actually crossing. If he went and did _that,_ there really wouldn’t be any turning back anymore, would there?

He reacted with some surprise when he felt movement near his right leg, and saw Grimmjow’s injured hand slowly creeping upward along the outside of his thigh.

 _Oh shit,_ Ichigo realized. This was actually happening, wasn’t it?

One look down at the Arrancar’s face, his pupils blown wide as he continued to fixate on Ichigo’s abdomen, was enough to convince Ichigo that yes, it really was. Grimmjow was all but panting, and his boxers were starting to look a hell of a lot tighter than they already had been, which was saying something.

Ichigo bit his lip as he stared down at the bulging black fabric.

Was it really bigger than his, as Grimmjow had been implying all night? Would his pubes be the same shade of blue as his hair? _Did Aizen have his Espada circumcised?_

He was about to find out. _Holy fucking shit._

“Don’t suppose there’s a chance you’ve got any others? Bit further down, maybe?” Grimmjow murmured hopefully, his right hand brushing against the waistband of his hakama.

Smiling through the sensation of having his heart try to escape his ribcage coupled with a sudden bout of mild nausea, Ichigo bared his teeth in challenge. “Feel like checking for yourself?”

Grimmjow didn’t even hesitate. _“Fuck yes.”_

For the second time that night, his pants and underwear slid down his thighs right in front of Grimmjow’s eyes; except this time, Ichigo was feeling a lot more eager about it.

Grimmjow whistled lowly and without any shame whatsoever as he watched Ichigo’s length spring free of its confines. “Goddamn,” he uttered approvingly, reaching out to wrap a hand around it. Ichigo gritted his teeth to keep some rather embarrassing noises from spilling past his lips. “Go ahead,” Grimmjow teased him, “try telling me again about how you ain’t into me.”

Ichigo let out a frustrated groan, and Grimmjow leaned in closer, sadistic pleasure shining within those arctic blue eyes of his. “If I suggest getting my cock out for the sixth fucking time tonight, are you gonna turn me down again, Kurosaki?”

Ichigo’s entire head felt like it was on fire. Grimmjow’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t think I didn’t catch you looking. I’ve been watching you stare at my crotch like you were trying to develop fucking X-ray vision pretty much all night.”

With a grin that was positively _dripping_ with wicked pleasure, Grimmjow used his free hand to grab onto Ichigo’s wrist and slowly guide his hand down to cup his own crotch.

 _Fucking hell,_ Ichigo thought. It felt as if the thing was going to be tearing its way out of those tight-ass boxers all on its own if nothing was done to give it a helping hand.

“I’m gonna ask just one more time Kurosaki,” Grimmjow muttered into his ear. “You wanna find out if it lives up to your expectations or not?”

_Oh, to hell with this._

Ichigo practically dove down, fingers curling around the elastic of those tantalizing boxers like claws, and yanked the damned thing right out from under Grimmjow’s ass like he was a starving animal that had just found the one thing that might sate its hunger.

With his final obstacle out of the way, Ichigo let himself sink all the way down onto Grimmjow’s lap with a fleshy slap of ass cheeks hitting thighs. Their dicks briefly smashed together before Ichigo reached out for his prize and gripped it tightly, making Grimmjow’s toes curl upon contact.

Was it bigger than his?

_Debatable._

Were his pubes the same shade of blue that Ichigo had been expecting?

_Bluer, even._

Was he circumcised?

_Definitely fucking not._

“So?” Grimmjow breathed out, grinning almost deliriously as he and Ichigo tried to match the pace of their strokes. “Give it to me straight, Kurosaki; what’s the verdict?”

“It’s a nice cock,” Ichigo gasped, smirking. “Feels good in my hand, has nice girth to it. It’s got an interesting curve, too. Definitely a solid B+, maybe higher.”

“What do you even have to compare it to, you fucking virgin?” Grimmjow sneered, teeth bared in a savage grin as he give Ichigo’s manhood a firm squeeze right around the base and held it. Ichigo’s breath hitched when he realized the vulnerability of his current position.

 _Well then._ He hadn’t known _that_ was a thing for him.

He let out a moan that he managed to convert into a more masculine-sounding groan about halfway through, as Grimmjow released his vice-like grip and returned his attentions to the almost painfully swollen head of his dick.

“I should have moved out ages ago,” Ichigo blurted out, tipping his head back when Grimmjow did some pretty fucking amazing things to him with his hand.

“Thank fuck you finally did,” Grimmjow shot back, the grunts he let out sounding like music to Ichigo’s ears when Ichigo added some spit to the equation with the intent of having their below-belt operations running smoother. “I was getting close to ripping your clothes off right there in that shady shopkeeper’s bunker and having my way with you.”

“So what kept you?” Ichigo wondered.

“Blatant fucking stupidity, apparently,” Grimmjow grunted out. “Mostly yours. Thought I was being pretty fucking obvious about what I wanted when I kept telling you to suck my cock pretty much every time we fought, Kurosaki.”

“How the hell was that supposed to be obvious?!” Ichigo demanded, slapping Grimmjow’s hand out of the way so he could wrap his own around both their straining erections at once. “I thought you were just being a dick, like usual!”

Grimmjow, clearly approving of Ichigo’s plan of action, placed his own hand directly below Ichigo’s and matched the timing of his strokes. “Well, _usually_ I was trying to get you to suck my fucking cock!”

“Oh my god,” Ichigo groaned out in something close to desperation. “Can you… can you just like, shut up for about thirty seconds? I’m trying to focus on something here.”

“Blowing your load that soon? Pretty sad, Kurosaki,” Grimmjow cajoled him. “Gonna have to work on that endurance of yours.”

“Shut up,” Ichigo hissed back. “Besides, I see the way you’re barely holding yourself together.” He rubbed his thumb over a particularly sensitive spot and grinned manically when Grimmjow failed to entirely suppress a whimper. “If anyone’s gonna be blowing their load too soon, it’s gonna be you, Jaegerjaquez.”

“Bullshit. You’re gonna be wiping your own jizz off your freaking chin any second now,” Grimmjow said with an almost pained expression on his face.

“Keep talking and I swear to god I’m gonna be aiming right through that fucking hole in your stomach,” Ichigo threatened from between clenched teeth.

They locked gazes, upping the frequency of their strokes to the point where it seemed like they were trying to start a fire. With neither of them blinking even once—because apparently they’d both decided that this was simultaneously going to be a staring contest—they looked into each other’s eyes with increasingly constipated expressions as they each tried desperately not to be the one to come first.

Finally, Ichigo couldn’t hold it anymore and squeezed his eyes shut, his hips bucking of their own accord and further adding to the friction, and shot his shot; probably all over Grimmjow’s abdomen, if the splattering sounds he picked up were any indication.

“Fuck,” he stated breathlessly. When he opened his eyes again, he found that Grimmjow had his head tipped all the way back, beads of sweat dripping down the curve of his throat and over his Adam’s apple as he panted like he’d just finished running a marathon.

“Who… who won?” Ichigo asked him, having missed their photo finish himself.

Grimmjow rolled his head around until his eyes were facing forward again, blinking at the mess they’d made. “Well fuck,” he uttered. “Guess it’s a draw, then.” He looked up at Ichigo. “…What do we do now?”

With a groan, Ichigo leaned forward and let his head drop down on Grimmjow’s shoulder. “I don’t think I have the energy for a round two,” he admitted. “How about a rain check?”

“That mean there’s _gonna_ be a round two, Kurosaki?” Grimmjow asked, the tiny note of hope in his voice hard to miss.

“There damn well better be,” Ichigo groused, lifting his head just enough to narrow his eyes at Grimmjow, who smirked at him.

“Good. The handjob was nice, Kurosaki, but don’t think that’s all I wanted out of you.” Ichigo felt involuntarily shivers run down his spine at the raw hunger in Grimmjow’s eyes. “Not by a long shot,” he all but growled.

Grimmjow‘s lips pulled back to expose his teeth, an expression Ichigo shyly mirrored, and then they were leaning in to each other, getting closer and closer until—

“Oh my god.”

Ichigo froze in place a half-second after Grimmjow did, worry blooming in his gut when the man’s face first paled dramatically, and then gained a faintly green tinge to it. “…Grimmjow?”

Grimmjow looked down at his stomach. “Kurosaki,” he muttered, eyes wide with horror. “…You got spunk in my hole.”

They stared at each other.

Ichigo clamped a hand over his mouth.

 _“THAT’S NOT FUCKING FUNNY, YOU SHIT!”_ Grimmjow roared, as a cackling Ichigo tumbled sideways off his lap and crashed to the floor, his entire body convulsing uncontrollably. Grimmjow, with his dick still hanging out and half his limbs in less than fully operable condition, followed him down and fell on top of him, getting them both caught up in a bizarre, scantily-clad ball of violence right there on his living room floor.

One rather literal cockfight later, the two of them sat—at least partially dressed now—side by side on the ground, with Grimmjow leaning against the couch as Ichigo ran a washcloth along the insides of his Hollow Hole. “You’re a kinky son of a bitch, Kurosaki,” Grimmjow remarked as he observed his work. “Only just got to second base a minute or two ago and here you are, already using your entire hand to go rooting around in my guts.”

“Did you have to phrase it like _that_?” Ichigo groaned out. “Besides, who’s the kinkier one? The guy shoving his hand in or the guy _getting_ an entire hand shoved into him?”

“True, but out of the two of us, _I_ ain’t the one who was a total virgin earlier,” Grimmjow refuted. “You’re still the one going from zero to a hundred, Kurosaki.”

“Oh, and when exactly was the last time you’ve gotten any, huh?” Ichigo demanded as he yanked his hand out of Grimmjow’s abdomen and tossed the filthy washcloth into the water basin he’d brought back from the bathroom. “I feel like anyone that you might have actually been interested in among the Arrancar would also be the type to rip your dick off if you ever tried anything.”

The fact that Grimmjow had no immediate comeback told Ichigo all he needed to know.

“Yeah, well, so what?” the man finally grumbled out, sounding oddly defensive about it. “That doesn’t change anything; I still fucked my share of random shitstains back when I was alive.”

“Nuh-uh, past lives don’t count,” Ichigo cut in. “You said yourself that you don’t even think of yourself as the same person anymore, remember?”

Grimmjow seemed to be considering this. “Well, fuck,” he uttered, blue eyes suddenly gleaming mischievously. “If I’m a virgin again, then there’s a whole bunch of shit I’m gonna have to be doing for the first time again, Kurosaki.”

Ichigo grinned, face warming up. “I was kinda hoping you’d say that,” he admitted. “We can’t exactly go and wreck the park like we did tonight though, every time you come over. How’s our own private training bunker sound, instead?” he suggested. “Urahara owes me like a bajilion favors after the whole Aizen-thing. I could probably guilt-trip him into building us one.”

Grimmjow’s face lit up with an expression of almost childlike wonder. “You’re getting us our own space where we can kick each other’s shit in and then fuck each other’s brains out afterwards, _and_ you’re doing it by emotionally blackmailing that asshole shopkeeper?”

Ichigo gave a one-shouldered shrug. “I guess?”

Grimmjow stared at him with his mouth hanging open. “…I’ve never been hotter for you than I am right this moment, Kurosaki,” he blurted out, and Ichigo laughed, even as his stomach did a weird little flip.

 _Yup, this was it,_ he thought to himself. No going back. He was screwed, now.

Ichigo leaned in closer and threw his arms around Grimmjow’s neck, his grinning lips nearly brushing against Grimmjow’s own. “How about we start with you sucking _my_ cock then, and see where we get from there?”

Grimmjow’s wicked smile pretty much split his face in two as Ichigo felt not one, but both of the other man's arms curling around his waist. “You’re just full of great ideas tonight, aren’t you Kurosaki?”

“You don’t even know the half of it.”

He was so very, utterly, _unbelievably_ screwed; and not about to regret it for even a second.


End file.
